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By Ashley Legassic

FORESTRY CRISIS

Kamloops MLA calls $69 million for B.C. forestry workers “misleading”

Sep 23, 2019 | 4:21 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Kamloops-North Thompson MLA says the provincial government is misleading residents over the $69 million in funding announced for forestry workers last week.

Peter Milobar says much of the funding is coming from the province’s Rural Dividend Fund — which provides up to $25 million per year to assist rural communities with a population of 25,000 or less.

“It’s very misleading by the government, they’ve essentially frozen any funding coming out of the Rural Dividend Fund from the exact same communities that are affected by forestry, and trying to brand it as new money,” Milobar says. “It’s very disheartening to mislead communities that are going through this type of stress and turmoil right now, thinking that extra money is on its way when it’s really just a reallocation of the same money.”

However, Forests Ministry Parliamentary Secretary Ravi Kahlon says only a portion of the $69 million is coming from the dividend.

“There’s a lot of new money in that, some of that money is being reallocated through the Rural Dividend Fund. It’s important to note that the Rural Dividend Fund is not cancelled, the intake process has just been put on hold,” Kahlon says. “But we’ve decided to prioritize workers and their families because there’s some communities that are going through some tough times. So we’ve decided to move that up and we’ll come back to the rural dividend fund once we’ve taken care of these folks.”

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Milobar says the government should have come up with new money to support forestry workers instead of repurposing the grants available for rural communities.

“They announced it making it sound like this was new money — it’s not, it’s a repurposing of money,” Milobar says. “It’s a repurposing of money that was already targeted for rural communities, small job creation type projects in their communities, things like trail maintenance and clearance, a wide range of different things.”

Kahlon emphasizes this doesn’t mean the end of the Rural Dividend Fund — just a short-term freeze for now. Although, he says, it’s not clear if and when intake for it will open again.

“At this stage it’s not directly clear how much of (the $25 million) will be used, certainly right now we’re providing funding for workers and their families and the program has been suspended for the short term, but it’s not entirely clear if the intake will open up again, but we just didn’t want to make a commitment until we were sure.”

Kahlon affirmed the importance of training and education for impacted mill workers, along with contractors and loggers who also depend on the forestry industry.

“So it’s about reskilling and retooling people to take on the new opportunities that may rise directly in their community but certainly throughout the region.”